jazzyk

The Economist used to be pro-small-business free market. At some point they started justifying outsourcing as "free trade", which benefited big companies like Apple, etc. and stagnated or starved small businesses (and the productivity/innovation that comes from it), not to mention labor providers (even highly educated ones, such as software engineers :-))

This has proven to be quite bad for the US and Europe (except the 1%, whose interests The Economist represents through ownership) - and it may get even worse when money-printing will stop working at some point.

Many of today's incumbents WILL exist in two years' time, because they are the recipients of "helicopter money" to prop them up, even if they deserve to die.

The real losers will be small and medium businesses who will get some token (not enough to survive) help, so that politicians can claim that everyone was helped.

Artificially setting interest rates so low (say 1%) that by saving money, you are actually losing money to inflation (real inflation at least 5%, if you include healthcare, real estate and higher education) promotes over-leveraging and that's what we got.

The Agnelli family owns 43.4%, members of the Rothschild family own 21%, other big corporate/rich families interests own the rest. Lots of "Sirs", "Ladies" and "Baronesses" on the board of directors, as you can see below.

From the Wikipedia page:

Pearson PLC held a 50% shareholding via The Financial Times Limited until August 2015; at that time Pearson sold their share in the Economist. The Agnelli family's Exor paid £287m to raise their stake from 4.7% to 43.4%, while the Economist paid £182m for the balance of 5.04m shares which will be distributed to current shareholders.[2] Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild (21%), Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders.[2][3]

The current members of the board of directors of The Economist Group are: Rupert Pennant-Rea (Chairman), Zanny Minton Beddoes (editor-in-chief of The Economist), Lady Suzanne Heywood, Brent Hoberman, Sir David Bell, John Elkann, Alex Karp, Sir Simon Robertson, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Chris Stibbs and Baroness Jowell.[12]

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild publicly supports many politicians including Hillary Clinton.

"Whatever it takes" to backstop the stock market is apparently working.

I had been an avid reader for 30 years, cancelled my subscription around 2015-2016, and I was not even aware of the new ownership at the time, I just sensed the change of their ideological orientation and did not like it one bit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Group

He got it completely wrong - for quite some time, Grasshoppers have been routinely bailed out with money stolen from the Ants (through interest rates way below inflation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper

No, it is always the middle class (Upper- and middle-) that ends up paying the bill. Mostly through decreased standard of living.

I am really not sure what game the Saudis are playing.

- college education ($30K-$75K/year, preceded by purchasing a shack for $800K in a good-school town)

- health care ($25K/year for a high-deductible family plan)

What's the point?

Or do we consider education or healthcare luxury now?

Yet, all my highly educated friends think Federal Reserve has been doing a great job at "stabilizing the economy".

Ignorance is strength, after all.

But I think the inflation in health-care/education is caused by lack of competition.

As in - you can choose to not buy a new coat this winter, but you HAVE to buy health insurance. You HAVE to buy college education for your kid or otherwise s/he won't be able to ever start a family (working as a barista, or some such).

Also, none of these services were outsourced to cheaper location (because they can't. although a good number of people have been going abroad to get their medical degree, etc.)

Still, not "since forever", only since 1998, or so.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

The actual, real rate of unemployment is called "Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate" and covers all adults (16 or older) who are not working.

As you can see from the diagram on the BLS website, the participation rate is ~ 63% which is close to the lowest level in 40+ years.

Booming economy, for FAANG and Wall Street, perhaps. Just barely off the lows for most people, though.

https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

See, turning off telemetry (if it is even possible to turn it off fully) was implemented to be complex on purpose, so that most people can't do it and won't do it.

But Microsoft can still trumpet to the world that "you can turn it off if you want".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

For example, in Spain, you pay 19% on the first 12,450E, and the rate quickly goes up to 45% for anything over 60,000E (average income is ~30K)

There are some personal allowances and deductions, but most people pay at least some tax.

Only 56% of all billionaires are self-made.

Others inherited their money (the Walton family, the Rockefellers, eetc.)

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/wealthx-billionaire-census-m...

Most CEOs and high-level executives in Japan and Germany (and many other countries) typically have:

- an educational background in the area they manage (say, mechanical engineering for car production)

- long careers/experience in that area

- passion for it (CEOs who race cars, etc)

Unlike executive in the US, who:

- have a 4-year business degree followed with an MBA

- jump from industry to industry (Carly Fiorina, etc),

- have no passion for the stuff they produce (they are typically finance or marketing guys)

The end result is that US companies turn into marketing/branding shells who outsource everything except for branding/sales or some kind of financial engineering schemes (GE)

What happens when the inevitable correction comes? The Fed will run out of monetary tricks, eventually.

2. All-female colleges (many), there is perhaps one or two all-male, if they even still exist

Wherever the government tries to "regulate" - unprecedented wealth transfer from ordinary people to special interests follows: the health-care(?) mafia, the higher education mafia, etc. Always sold as "think of the elderly/children".

Big Government -> Lobbyists (corruption) -> Corporatism

(In the US, Europe is a bit different, because lobbying is not as predatory)

By asking people to have a voice instead of deciding for them??

Direct democracy can work very well - just look at Switzerland, which is the envy of the world when it comes to governance. It may/may not be scalable, but important decisions like EU membership should be decided by the people, not the elite.

The We Company has raised a total of $12.8B in funding over 14 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jan 9, 2019 from a Secondary Market round.

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/wework

But perhaps it does? Animals kill other animals only to survive (to kill them in order to eat them or to defend themselves from being killed/eaten)

Humans may be the only species who hurt other humans just for the fun of it - now _that_ is cruelty.

Make sure you go past the "featured" ones :-)

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Civilian labor force participation rate

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

Let the data speak for itself.

The parents had their children take on student loans, and bought themselves BMWs at the same time.

Now these kids graduated, are (predictably) struggling to make ends meet, and they may not be able to pay back their student loans.

Should the loans be forgiven in these case, as well? Who decides when and when not?

Also, the loan money did not only go to pay for tuition - I saw students doing homework on their top-of-the-line MacBooks sipping their $4 lattes all day long. Expensive vacations in some cases, too.